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Dell’s New PowerEdge Portfolio Puts Sustainability Front & Center without Sacrificing Performance

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Servers are becoming commonplace for businesses as more of them navigate their journey to the cloud. From on-premises servers to the cloud, data storage, remote workloads, and automation have slowly become necessary for businesses to function. Dell has long been a hardware partner and provider for businesses and service providers. The PowerEdge portfolio has become integral to some of the largest, most resilient cloud service providers and on-premises servers for businesses.

Delivering Optimized, Sustainable Power with AI-enabled technology & Optimised Design

Dell is upping the ante when it comes to hardware and compatibility with purpose-built servers in their new PowerEdge portfolio. The new servers come in multiple form factors including 1U and 2U slices. They also come fully equipped with the latest server processors from AMD and Intel. These specifications and the myriad of form factors allow Dell to cater to any workload. The new Dell PowerEdge portfolio also comes with models that are able to accommodate multi-GPU servers for AI and ML workloads.

Dell PowerEdge NEXT Coverage

The new PowerEdge portfolio isn’t just about power, it’s also about sustainability. Dell Technologies has made their new offerings more power efficient with better cooling and AI. The new servers have been optimised from the chassis to their internals to provide better cooling and airflow. Paired with Dell’s AI-enabled CouldIQ, the new PowerEdge lineup is poised to provide customers with lower overheads and greener operations.

With Dell’s Smart Flow design, servers are able to cool more efficiently with up to a 52% reduction in fan power. They are also empowering customers to be more sustainable with the OpenManage Enterprise Power Manager 3.0 software which allows customers to better manage their operations efficiency. It also them to actively monitor carbon emissions and set power caps up to 82% faster. All these features come in addition to the insights it gives on server use, virtual machines and facility energy consumption and leak detection for liquid-cooled systems. It goes without saying that there are even more features built in. Dell’s new lineup also comes with EPEAT ecolabel.

A Server for Every Need

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[Source: Dell Technologies] Complete lineup of Next Generation PowerEdge Server Portfolio

Optimised Cloud Service Provider Solutions

Dell PowerEdge HS5610
Dell PowerEdge HS5620

Dell’s new portfolio isn’t just for businesses. They’re also looking as cloud service providers with the Dell PowerEdge HS5610 and HS5620. These servers deliver services that are optimised and tailored to cloud service providers. Coming in 1U and 2U form factors, these two-socket servers are looking to provide cloud service providers with a new edge. They are even cold aisle serviceable. Dell has also equipped these systems with Dell Open Server Manager which simplifies multi-vendor fleet management.

Powerful Simplicity

Dell’s PowerEdge servers are looking to take conventional servers and turn them into efficient powerhouses. With offerings like the Dell PowerEdge R760, the company is able to deliver up to 2.9x greater AI inferencing with Intel’s 4th Generation Xeon processors. Intel’s Deep Learning Boost and Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions are key in delivering the performance boost. The R760 is able to accommodate up to 20% more VDI users than previous generations and over 50% more SAP Sales & Distribution users in a single server. It can be further enhanced with NVIDIA’ Bluefield-2 data processing units to provide additional power for private, hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

AI & High-Performance Compute

Dell PowerEdge R760
[Source: Dell Technologies] Dell PowerEdge R760 rack unit

Dell’s PowerEdge XE9680, XE9640 and XE8640 are all built and optimised for AI and HPC workloads. Designed in close collaboration with Intel and NVIDIA, the servers are built to enable AI for model training, HPC modelling and simulation, core-to-edge inferencing and data visualisation. Coming with power specifications like the NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core or NVIDIA GPUs the systems are able to train and deploy machine learning models for automation and analysis. The new designs also allow for higher rack density with PowerEdge.

EPYC Performance

It isn’t just a one-sided thing with Dell. PowerEdge also embraces AMD’s EPYC technology. The increasingly power-efficient performance of AMD’s EPYC processors has allowed Dell to design PowerEdge systems that create the backbone of data centres. With 1U and 2U form factors, these PowerEdge servers are designed to enable data storage and performance computing with better power efficiency.

Easy Deployment for Scalability and Zero Trust

The PowerEdge servers are also built with security in mind. They empower Zero Trust deployments in any given organisation. Everything from hardware to software is fortified for better data security. Dell’s Secure Component Verification (SCV) works in tandem with silicon-based hardware root of trust to verify supply chain security from design to delivery.

In addition, Dell’s PowerEdge offerings are being deployed not only as hardware purchases which fall under CapEx. Instead, Dell is also deploying them in an “as-a-service” offering which allows companies to better optimise CapEx spending with OpEx flexibility.

Dell PowerEdge offerings will be available starting on 13 April 2023. Detailed availability is as follows:

  • Dell PowerEdge R760 is available starting 13 April 2023.
  • Dell PowerEdge HS5620, HS5610 are available globally in April 2023.
  • Dell PowerEdge XE9680, XE8640 and XE9640 availabilities are planned in the first half of 2023
  • Dell PowerEdge R7625, R7615, R6625 and R6615 are available starting 13 April 2023.
  • Additional next-generation Dell PowerEdge servers will be global availability throughout the first half of 2023.
  • ProDeploy Factory Configuration is globally available starting 13 April 2023.
Business, Computers, News

NVIDIA Grace CPU for Datacentres for Next Generation Super Computers

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NVIDIA’s GTC 2021 just happened last night. If you remembered 2020, you would remember that GTC 2020 was also the time where NVIDIA introduced their new A100 GPU chips for super computers. 2020 was also the yea NVIDIA launched their highly anticipated, and highly capable RTX 3000 series consumer grade GPUs.

GTC’s keynote is always a highly anticipated event. Not because the conference always brings a new GPU. Recent years of GTC has always been exciting because somehow GPU is able to push the limits of what is possible with computing and cloud. NVIDIA has made itself relevant not just in the graphics world, but also in the super computing world, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and even cybersecurity. NVIDIA’s own AI even composed its own song, and it is a good song mind you.

With GTC 2021, NVIDIA shows that they are not done innovating just yet. Now, they also want to give the likes of Intel a new sort of headache. NVIDIA has introduced Project Grace.

Source: NVIDIA

NVIDIA’s CEO, Jensen Huang mentions that the name Grace refers to a particular pioneer in the computer science field, Grace Hopper. The project is NVIDIA’s first dip into the datacentre CPU industry. Fitting to the Grace Hopper namesake, project Grace is supposed to be 10x more powerful than the current NVIDIA GDX x86 supercomputer platform.

Why is this a problem for Intel? The world’s fastest supercomputer today is all powered by Intel’s x86 CPU platform. The x86 platform has also existed for about a decade now and the platform has approached its technological limits in 2021. Of course, NVIDIA took matters into their own hands and the Grace CPU is an ARM based chip for the fastest ever datacentre and servers in the world.

Just saying that the CPU will be the fastest ever server-based CPU though means nothing. What you want to know is numbers, and these are big numbers. The new Grace architecture allows the CPU and GPU to communicate at up to 900GB/s speed thanks to NVLink technology. According to NVIDIA, that is 30x faster than most servers today. Of course, paired to LPDDR5x memory modules, you get up to 10x the speed of today’s machines.

Before anyone can say that NVIDIA’s Grace dreams is just that; dreams, NVIDIA also announced that they will be installing their Grace based datacentre in the United States Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Labrotory and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS). The two clients will feature their very own NVIDIA powered supercomputer soon.

Source: NVIDIA

In those two places though, the servers and supercomputers are not built just to push cloud storage to corporations. They are purpose built for AI training and implementations. They are built for neural and language programming and training. They are built to progress humanity and probably cure cancer one day.

Of course, because Grace is a giant processor made for datacentres and supercomputers, we will not be expecting to see NVIDIA dive into consumer level ARM-based processors for PCs anytime soon. NVIDIA is working with MediaTek to bring their GPU technology into the mobile space and even ARM based PCs though. In that case, us regular consumers can expect a Qualcomm Snapdragon notebook PC with NVIDIA GeForce graphics power soon, probably. Catch NVIDIA’s GTC 2021 keynote on their website.

Business, Computers, News

Dell Technologies Brings EPYC Power & Flexibility with New Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers

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Hot off the heels of AMD’s announcement of their new EPYC processors, Dell Technologies has revealed a series of new offerings that put the AMD EPYC front and centre. The new Dell EMC servers come optimised for multiple workloads to help businesses better cater to their needs. They up the ante with up to 64 cores with EPYC’s new Zen 3 architecture.

The new additions add to Dell Technologies’ already robust portfolio of Dell EMC PowerEdge offerings. They bring updated technologies with improved compute capabilities. The expanded portfolio allows for better handling of critical workloads and applications augmented by fast data performance thanks to the integration of PCIe Gen 4 technology. In addition, the new offerings in the Dell EMC PowerEdge portfolio come with up to six accelerators to help with large, challenging, data-intensive workloads. They continue to put data security and redundancy at the core with a well-established Root of Trust and what Dell Technologies refers to as a Cyber resilient architecture.

Of course, running on the Zen 3 augmented EPYC processors, the new PowerEdge servers are more power-efficient than before. Dell Technologies claims that the new racks offer up to 60% power efficiency compared to the previous generation. Adding to its power efficiency, Dell has equipped the new generation PowerEdge with multi-vector cooling. This technology helps direct airflow to the hottest portions of the server; helping maintain lower temperatures and better performance.

The new line up consists of six offerings catered for different workloads and computing environments. From powerful, performance-oriented racks to AI optimised racks to deceivingly powerful, slim racks, Dell’s new offerings have you covered. Their Dell EMC PowerEdge XE8545 marries the performance of AMD’s new EPYC cores with NVIDIA’s A100 GPUs for powerful, AI and machine learning optimised workloads. The PowerEdge R6515 packs a configurable, dual-socket setup in a 1U rack server for compact performance while the R7515 brings a scalable single-socket 2U rack with performance and affordability in mind. They’ve got the C6525 for high performance, dense computing environments while the R7525 and R6525 bring extended flexibility.

Business, Computers, News

Even More EPYC with AMD – Stacking Zen 3

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Just when we thought AMD is done with being the best at gaming, they proved that one title is never enough. They want to retain their title as the most powerful ever, with a full-stop right after. So, they went ahead and introduced what seems to be the most powerful processing chips in the world, the EPYC 7003 series server processors.

The new EPYC 7003 series is the third-generation server processors by AMD. That also means that it gets the Zen 3 architecture that the AMD Ryzen 5000 series line-up got. That same architecture also means that AMD’s processing core clusters gets to access all of the available cache memory module when necessary, instead of just half of it. Again, if you were doing some research with AMD’s latest Ryzen 5000 with Zen 3 architecture, it might sound like something simple and small. The results are quite significant though.

At least in terms of a server, Zen 3 architecture also allows the cores to process more data at any single time than before. In practical terms, that also means a much faster processor compared to before. Of course, AMD’s implementation also means more efficient power consumption.

The headline figures for EPYC’s flagship is up to 64 cores and 128 threads. With 64 cores, the processor features 256MB of cache, that is the first indication that this is not your regular consumer gaming PC stuff. All cores are clocked at 2.45GHz and can be boosted up to 3.675GHz when necessary.

Of course, these chips are also embedded with extra security measurements and algorithms. In a server, data center, cloud seservice, and virtualisation environment, protecting your data is of utmost importance. Security, in this case, has to start from the processors itself with AMD’s own Infinity Guard suite encryption technologies to keep everything it processes secure.

Of course, you are not going to see the AMD EPYC processors out on the street. These are highly specialised processors made for Artificial Intelligence implementation, data centers, and data backbones for larger organisations. These are the stuff that keeps thigs like Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services running for you.

The AMD EPYC processors range from 32 cores to 64 cores. The EPYC processors are usually the base for AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper platforms. There are obviously no announcements made yet on the availability of the prosumer processor platforms at this time. If they are launching a Threadripper soon though, the AMD EPYC processors could probably give you an insight to what you can expect.